Garlic and Me

It was a tool catalog that taught me how and when to plant and harvest garlic. Lee Valley, a mail-order company based in Canada, was a go-to catalog for my wood-working wonder of a partner. Years ago, while touting some gardening wonder implement or another, the company included a half page on garlic growing.  I can do this!!

Garlic is the last thing I plant each season. I start thinking about planting around the fall equinox.  I look over the garden and plan next year in my mind's eye and then decide what small space (about three yards square) I will choose to bed the garlic in over the winter.  I have until frost to get them in so I am leisurely about this.

I have saved back a few robust garlic heads from my July harvest. I have also pestered the garlic seller at farmer's market to share his favorites for me to try. And then in a whirl of activity, I break the heads into individual cloves, push them about an inch deep and 2-3" apart and ten minutes later, my year's worth of garlic is planted.  I put a thick mulch about 12" deep on top of them and mark the area.

The garlic sleeps the winter away.

By the spring equinox, the shoots are up; by summer solstice the scapes are ready and by July the stalks are brown and sere and my garlic is ready to come out of the ground.  A quick tug, a rub to get off the clinging dirt, a gentle braid of three heads with a loop at the top and they are ready to dry.

Our old rake handle (seems appropriate given where I learned to grow garlic) will hold the harvest under a protected roof to dry for a few weeks. Then I'll cut off the stems and put them in the pantry. I dream of meals ahead.....

Getting Fresh - Winter Salads

Pomegranates & shaved radishes

We love fresh greens in the dark days of winter. Although we enjoy eating local and seasonal, this is the hardest to achieve with salad greens during January and February. Most farms, even ones with greenhouses, can barely afford the fuel for heat and grow lights in this darkest of seasons to grow the delicate beauties. Few achieve it near us.  But we crave a fresh bite, so off to the co-op we go.

For some odd reason, we get more crazy inventive with our salads than we do in spring and early summer with abundant salad greens at our fingertips.  We top our winter salad greens with pomegranates and oranges; pears and citrus; avocados and nuts; shaved radishes and cabbage . We play with vinegars as we make our dressings and noodle around with bits of this and that for more crunch. Cheeses in little dollops for the soft ones and thin shaved pieces for the hard ones lend an interesting depth to the proceedings.

It's like a little party everyday. We're not sure what'll appear in our salads but that makes it all the more fun!

Simple Pasta

True confession: we don't eat a ton of pasta (I know, I know, heinous crime and all that). Red sauce is ok; white sauce is too rich; pesto is a favorite back-up but even that gets old every time and olive oil, while tasty, is too one-note to use constantly.  But there is one pasta recipe we revisit often.

Found in my ubiquitous Fine Cooking magazine (and online here) this is a barely sauced number that gives me everything I like - an outrageously fun pasta shape, peas, leeks, a chance to play with different sausages; a place for home-made chicken broth and a bracing asiago finish. And my mantra of ten ingredients or less!

The cheese binds lightly with the broth to impart a light and almost floral sauce to the dish. The leeks and shallot lend a sweet carmelized taste that works with the peas to make you want to lick the pasta bowl out. We use a hint of butter for taste and olive oil to replace most of the rest suggested in the recipe.

The best recipes in my mind are those that offer a guiding set of foods but that are open to endless play. This is one of those. If you don't have campanelle pasta (trumpet shape), then shells or other open shapes that sweet little peas can nest in work just fine. Don't have peas? Then try another sweet veggie like carrots or rutabagas cut up small. Leeks not on hand? Then play with any allium hanging about the pantry.  Don't like italian sausage? Then try turkey sausage or brats cut up or substitute capers and have no meat at all. Add more meat, less meat, more peas, fewer leeks and you still come out with a simple and delicious dish.

With a bright salad of greens and shaved radishes lightly dressed with olive oil and rice wine vinegar, a satisfying meal is the result. Simple.